You can take this with a grain of salt, but I just woke up from a dream that I figured I should write down before I forget it. I was in a banquet hall walking among the tables. I was introduced as someone with a gift for understanding but I don't remember the wording. At that time, it came to me so I spoke to the people.

I can tell you what reality is but you're not going to want to hear it. Do you want me to tell you anyway?

You are multidimensional. You are one universal consciousness. You are also a body. You live through connection to the Akashic record, which supplies physicality the information it needs to grow and function. Qi is the energy that makes the information flow.

Then I woke up.

To continue the theme of the dream, the thing we call God is the collective Us. Mormon God is utter hogwash but as an icon it still works. Mormonism's lack of personal boundaries makes it work better, so that is a feature not a bug. The Q15 likes to play God, which is where I draw the line.

The thing we call ‘God’ is the eternal mystery, which remains a mystery to all of us, even though most of us pretend to have resolved that mystery by calling it ‘God’.

OH, MY. GOD!!!!!!!!!!!!


You are not a cat. You are a dog with a bone.

Well, we know what his purpose in life is.

Now go and have a slice of π.

schrodingerscat Wrote:
----------------------------
> The thing we call ‘God’ is
> the eternal mystery, which
> remains a mystery to all of
> us, even though most of us
> pretend to have resolved
> that mystery by calling it
> ‘God’.


If only he could make it rhyme!

“The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science. He to whom the emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand wrapped in awe, is as good as dead —his eyes are closed. The insight into the mystery of life, coupled though it be with fear, has also given rise to religion. To know what is impenetrable to us really exists, manifesting itself as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty, which our dull faculties can comprehend only in their most primitive forms—this knowledge, this feeling is at the center of true religiousness.”

Albert Einstein, Living Philosophies

schrodingerscat Wrote, quoting
Apple π Einstein:
----------------------------
> “The most beautiful thing
> we can experience is the   
> mysterious. It is the source
> of all true art and science."

Seriously, does that make any sense?   "Mysterious" is not really a suitable word for a scientist.  Yes, a thing, or things, can be "Mysterious", but what do scientists do when confronted with mysterious things?  Yeah, they plumb the depths and figure out what makes the mysterious work.  Are there concepts that were once "Mysterious" and now, aren't?  Might Pi have been "Mysterious" at one time?  How about blood transfusions, orbital flights, the back side of the moon?

If the above bit of the quote can be given any sense, it's that π-day birthday boy may have been thinking "mysteries" are what give science meaning/purpose, in that unraveling them is what science is all about.

> He to whom the emotion is a
> stranger, who can no longer
> pause to wonder and stand
> wrapped in awe, is as good
> as dead, his eyes are closed.

Is Albert saying that "Mysterious" is an emotion?  Did he mean curiosity?  It might make for a more tidy understanding.  Same for the first part of the quote, supra.


> The insight into the mystery
> of life, coupled though it
> be with fear, has also given
> rise to religion. To know what
> is impenetrable to us really
> exists, manifesting itself as
> the highest wisdom and the
> most radiant beauty, which our
> dull faculties can comprehend
> only in their most primitive
> forms—this knowledge, this
> feeling is at the center of
> true religiousness.”
>
> Albert Einstein,
> Living Philosophies
  (As opposed to dead philosophies?)


It would have useful had Einstein given us a hint as to what he meant by "Mysterious". I want to continue to assert that "Curiosity" is a better word.


And then there's his biography, the story of his life.  Yeah, smart guy, but kind of squishy with regard to personal relationships.  

None of us is perfect, but honestly, do you think he fit would into your life as a bosom buddy?

I loved the movie "I.Q."; that version of Einstein was cool.  But I think they took some liberties...

Yeah, everyone should pick a favorite genius and worship him!


You know who your favorite person in the whole wide world should be?  You should be your favorite person.  And most of us know how flawed that person is.  But stick with him!  ...or her!

Einstein was a great and perhaps unique theoretical physicist and cosmologist. But to anyone who has bothered to read his political musings, he was your average junior-high student when it came to such things. And as you note, he was a philanderer who abandoned a child and a wife as if they were yesterday's half-eaten Taco Bell burritos.

Is that surprising? Is it strange that genius doesn't transcend fields of expertise--that Mozart, for instance, was an indifferent computer scientist?

I don't know why people are so servile, so in need of a superhuman to give their own lives meaning, that they cannot bear to recognize the limits of their heroes.

Pie is round but at 144, Einstein is square.

    
    

And that was too easy.

No soup for you!

Here is the actual quote in full context:

"The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true science. Whoever does not know it and can no longer wonder, no longer marvel, is as good as dead, and his eyes are dimmed. It was the experience of mystery -- even if mixed with fear -- that engendered religion. A knowledge of the existence of something we cannot penetrate, our perceptions of the profoundest reason and the most radiant beauty, which only in their most primitive forms are accessible to our minds -- it is this knowledge and this emotion that constitute true religiosity; in this sense, and in this alone, I am a deeply religious man. I cannot conceive of a God who rewards and punishes his creatures, or has a will of the kind that we experience in ourselves. Neither can I nor would I want to conceive of an individual that survives his physical death; let feeble souls, from fear or absurd egoism, cherish such thoughts. I am satisfied with the mystery of the eternity of life and with the awareness and glimpse of the marvelous structure of the existing world, together with the devoted striving to comprehend a portion be it ever so tiny, of the Reason that manifests itself in nature."

(Albert Einstein, Ideas and Opinions (1954) p. 11)

Here is another Einstein quote from which to assess Einstein's view of the 'mysterious."

"On the other hand, I maintain that the cosmic religious feeling is the strongest and noblest motive for scientific research. Only those who realize the immense efforts and, above all, the devotion without which pioneer work in theoretical science cannot be achieved are able to grasp the strength of the emotion out of which alone such work, remote as it is from the immediate realities of life, can issue. What a deep conviction of the rationality of the universe and what a yearning to understand, where it but a feeble reflection of the mind revealed in this world, Kepler and Newton must have had to enable them to spend years of solitary labor in disentangling the principles of celestial mechanics! Those whose acquantance with scientific research is derived chiefly from its practical results easily develop a completely false notion of the mentality of the men who, surrounded by a skeptical world, have shown the way to kindred spirits scattered wide through the world and the centuries. Only one who has devoted his life to similar ends can have a vivid realization of what has inspired these men and given them strength to remain true to their purpose in spite of countless failures. It is cosmic religious feeling that gives a man such strength. A contemporary has said, not unjustly, that in this materialistic age of ours the serious scientific workers are the only profoundly religious people."

(Ibid. at p. 39)

These quotes and many others suggest that Einstein associated the idea of "the mysterious" with the "transcendent." That is how and why he identified himself as "religious." As you can see for yourself, his comments do not simply reflect an 'appreciation' or 'awe' of nature; or a "curiosity." The 'mysterious' was deeply embedded in his scientific worldview, as it was for many others of his generation of scientists.

That said, Einstein's views are just one man's opinion. And as 'otherwise smart people' often say when confounded by facts and logic:

"Pay no attention to the man presuming to know it all."

Henry Bemis, thank you.

I appreciate your participation. In honor of Einstein's birthday, and also to encourage you to 'stay tuned' in the face of opposition, I will add the following additional quotes for those wishing to understand Einstein's deepest feelings of the transcendent:

"One can have the clearest and most complete knowledge of what *is*, and yet not be able to deduct from that what should be the *goal* of our human aspirations. Objective knowledge provides us with powerful instruments for the achievements of certain ends, but the ultimate goal itself and the longing to reach it must come from another source. And it is hardly necessary to argue for the view that our existence and our activity acquire meaning only by the setting up of such a goal and of corresponding values. The knowledge of truth as such is wonderful, but it is so little capable of acting as a guide that it cannot prove even the justification and the value of the aspiration towards that very knowledge of truth. Here we face, therefore, the limits of the purely rational conception of our existence."

(Einstein, Out of My Later Years (1956) p. 11)

"Thought is the organizing factor in man, intersected between the causal primary instincts and the resulting actions. In this way imagination and intelligence enter into our existence in the part of servants of the primary instincts. . . .
Yet, the process which I have indicated plays a very important part also in ordinary life. Indeed there is no doubt that to this process -- which one may describe as a spiritualizing of the emotions and of thought -- that to it man owes the most subtle and refined pleasures of which he is capable; the pleasure in the beauty of artistic creation and of logical trains of thought."

(Ibid. at 13-14)

"One can have the clearest and most complete knowledge of what *is*, and yet not be able to deduct from that what should be the *goal* of our human aspirations. Objective knowledge provides us with powerful instruments for the achievements of certain ends, but the ultimate goal itself and the longing to reach it must come from another source. And it is hardly necessary to argue for the view that our existence and our activity acquire meaning only by the setting up of such a goal and of corresponding values. The knowledge of truth as such is wonderful, but it is so little capable of acting as a guide that it cannot prove even the justification and the value of the aspiration towards that very knowledge of truth. Here we face, therefore, the limits of the purely rational conception of our existence."

(Ibid. p. 20)

COMMENT: In all fairness, Einstein also had his 'materialist' moments. His views when taken as a whole represent a classic example of the tension between materialist science, on the one hand, and human nature, human values, and the transcendent, rational, order of the universe itself, on the other hand. Unlike the vast majority of theoretical scientists today, he openly acknowledged this transcendence many times, and was clearly perplexed by this mystery.

Since it is his birthday, I will add a couple of further comments: Although it is true that Einstein was not to be admired as a 'family man,' he did not "abandon his children," as has been alleged in this thread. He was distant by nature, and generally uninvolved, but not disinterested. His first wife, Mileva received, as previously promised, his Nobel prize money, significant at the time, to assist in raising their children, and he kept in touch with his sons throughout their lives, including Eduardo, who suffered from severe mental health issues and was eventually institutionalized. Both of his sons were named in his will.

Moreover, Einstein's moral compass in political matters was not "junior-high level" or otherwise uninformed, as has also been alleged. He stood firm against the rise of Hitler and Nazism, in both word and deed, for example. He also was active in warnings about the atomic bomb. His embracement of Zionism might be controversial now, but at the time was consistent with his heritage and current events. He was imperfect, of course, but had no extreme moral flaws, as viewed by those who knew him best.

Thank you for the extra. I appreciate the direct quotes. Here’s you:

“In all fairness, Einstein also had his 'materialist' moments. His views when taken as a whole represent a classic example of the tension between materialist science, on the one hand, and human nature, human values, and the transcendent, rational, order of the universe itself, on the other hand. Unlike the vast majority of theoretical scientists today, he openly acknowledged this transcendence many times, and was clearly perplexed by this mystery.”

You mean a fellow human being was full of paradox, contradictions, or even, if we pushed this further, hypocrisies, biases, and dissonances of all sorts? Well ‘shock me blue’. And a genius was clearly perplexed? And used the word mystery”? Goodness gracious, how dare Einstein be human. How dare a materialist admit to also finding things “mysterious”.


We are larger than the words we use and the numbers we find. How large does that make the Universe?

Cheers, Henry. Recently thought of you when The Weather Report came up on my jazz line-up. Hard disagree with you. I skipped ahead.

Using the word mystery in place of the word fantasy is a bit misleading and a lot self serving. Donenstien.

All hail the Eternal Mystery! Now send offerings of pies and Pusser's Rum to the Eternal Mystery's servant, ookami!

On your death bed, you will receive total consciousness.

I couldn't believe that more had JS said so in a vision. /s

(Gee, it's almost like there hasn't been constant movie talk about multidimensions or something.)

Reality is a crutch for people who lack imagination.

“I'm not crazy about reality, but it's still the only place to get a decent meal.”

― Groucho Marx

Too good!

Reality is what you avoid at all costs as it is often a tough pill to swallow. For this purpose, along with other escapes, we have invented Virtual Reality which is of course an oxymoron like civil war, only choice, and pretty ugly.

Perhaps Virtuous Reality would make the idea more palatable?

But, of course, deciding on the definition of virtue would be an oxymoronic challenge and we'd just end up arguing with the outcome being another oxymoron: Original Copy.

It's not this
Nor is it that

That is for sure! You nailed it!

Thank you - I almost hit my thumb (but it wasn't smoking)!

Reality is what you experience after you puke from drinking the ayahuasca.

A golf buddy did the Peru - ayahuasca thing, with a shaman of great repute (according to both of them...) and gave us an excellent rendition of the process...

But it didn't change him as a golfer, not one little bit, much less shave any strokes off his game.

Every time I come here I find myself loving the way you post. This one brought to mind a fright from the film “American Werewolf in London”, wonderfully encapsulated in the first few paragraphs of an introduction to Reality:

~~~~~~~
One night, the French zoologist Yves Delage is woken up by a knock on the door. It is the caretaker, telling him to get up as a friend has fallen ill. Delage gets out of bed, dresses, and quickly walks into his dressing room to wash his face with a wet sponge. The sensation of cold water wakes him up: he is in fact lying in bed, undressed, there was no one knocking at the door. The whole experience has been a dream.

Minutes later, there is another knock at the door. It is the caretaker: ‘Monsieur, aren’t you coming then?’ ‘Good heavens! So it is really true! I thought I had dreamt it.’ ‘Not at all. Hurry up, they are all waiting for you!’ Delage gets up, dresses, hurries to the dressing room to wash his face. When his face makes contact with the sponge, he wakes up, undressed, in bed. After a short while, there is another knock, and again, the caretaker: ‘Monsieur …’.

The whole sequence, we are told, repeated itself four times before Delage finally wakes up in the real world. Delage experienced the “unusual but not rare phenomenon of false awakening: he woke up into what he thought was the real world, only to realize that this, too, was a dream. Waking up again, it turns out that he is still in a dream from which he has yet to awake. The number of layers dreamers go through before finally waking up can be quite large, and those experiencing false awakenings often find the whole process very distressing.”

—Jan Westerhoff—
—Reality: A Very Short Introduction—

What if the story is nothing like it started out, but initially got some minor tweaks, one at a time, but then major tweaks were inserted as it got passed around?

What if the story, as it's now being told, is the result of the same process that gave us the bible?

Reality is that which when you stop believing in it is still there.


HH =)

Happy_Heretic Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Reality is that which when you stop believing in
> it is still there.

> HH =)


My view as well.

  
    

A disappointment.

Not sure, but its checks keep bouncing.

I can't find the quote, so I hope I am accurately paraphrasing Isaac Bashevis Singer -

We do not deal with reality. We deal with our mental construct of reality, but we hope that it is only one step removed from reality.
==

Dreams are two [or more?] steps removed from reality. I continue to be surprised that nearly all animals need sleep, even if it is just half a brain at a time, and dreaming seems to be pretty widespread as well.

Why has nature not evolved animals that don't need to sleep/dream? The only reason I can think of is that sleep is essential to the functioning of a brain. What puzzles me is why that is so. It seems to me that being able to stay awake and alert 24/7 would be useful for survival. Apparently, it is less useful than the need for sleep. Why?

Maybe sleep is the fleshy version of "have you tried turning it off and on again?"


Also, ants sleep up to eight minutes...EIGHT MINUTES!!...out of every 12 hours...

“Apparently, [24/7 alertness] is less useful than the need for sleep. Why?”

I’ve been asking that question for a long time. Good question. If you have any articles exploring this exact question, make a new thread. It’s a fundamental question that as far as I have seen gets hand-waved away. And that’s for sleep. Dreaming while sleeping is even more…dare I say it…mysterious. Pourquoi?


No need to dig up Singer when Heisenberg on the same idea is proverbial:

“What we observe is not nature in itself but nature exposed to our method of questioning.”

This may be cliché but it is no less fundamental.

“Apparently, [24/7 alertness] is less useful than the need for sleep. Why?”

COMMENT: The first problem with this is the presumption inherent in the word "apparently." There is no legitimate evolutionary assumption that a common biological trait must have been a "useful" adaptation, or that the lack of a trait must imply a "less useful" evolutionary possibility.

Notwithstanding the persistence of this myth, it has been uncovered as such at least since George Williams' 1966 seminal book on Adaption and Natural Selection. Here he states:

"Much of this book, however, will constitute an attack on what I consider unwarranted uses of the concept of adaptation. This biological principle should be used only as a last resort. It should not be invoked when less onerous principles, such as those of physics and chemistry or that of unspecific cause and effect, are sufficient for a complete explanation."

"A frequent practice is to recognize adaptation in any recognizable benefit arising from the activities of an organism. I believe that this is an insufficient basis for postulating adaptation and that it has led to some serious errors. A benefit can be the result of chance instead of design. The decision as to the purpose of a mechanism must be based on an examination of the machinery and an argument as to the appropriateness of the means to the end. It cannot be based on value judgments of actual or probable consequences."

(George C. Williams, Adaption and Natural Selection (1966), p. 11)

Sleep is obviously a maladaptive trait because sleeping organisms are vulnerable to predators, and (the last time I checked) no sexual intercourse takes place during sleep, and thus reproduction is not facilitated during sleep.

My guess is that sleep came about simply because of biological constraints on evolution as related to the consumption of energy. Thereafter, evolutionary effects may have provided non-adaptive benefits related to sleep as modern neuroscientists often point to. (See, e.g. Matthew Walker, *Why We Sleep* (2020))

____________________________________________

I’ve been asking that question for a long time. Good question. If you have any articles exploring this exact question, make a new thread. It’s a fundamental question that as far as I have seen gets hand-waved away.

COMMENT: Yes, it is neglected. The reason is related to what I noted above. Evolutionary biologists who are intent upon providing adaptionist explanations for all of biology, have had a hard time spinning a yarn about the adaptationist virtues of sleep.
_________________________________________

And that’s for sleep. Dreaming while sleeping is even more…dare I say it…mysterious. Pourquoi?

COMMENT: Well, if dreaming is correlated with brain function, and we know that brains *do* function during sleep, then why should we be surprised about dreaming? After all, presumably memories of events are imperfectly encoded in the brain and can often surface 'unannounced.' So why not via dreams? What *is* mysterious, of course, is if and when dreams have precognitive effects; as when linked to future events. There are some pretty impressive stories to this effect.
_____________________________________________

No need to dig up Singer when Heisenberg on the same idea is proverbial:

“What we observe is not nature in itself but nature exposed to our method of questioning.”

COMMENT: I will leave this deep and complex thought for another thread.

I recently found out I have a weird sleep thing. You are supposed to start dreaming around 90 minutes into a cycle. I can start 5-10 in. Since I was very young I have had all kinds of sleep issues, it's a real PITA.

Susan I/S Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I recently found out I have a weird sleep thing.
> You are supposed to start dreaming around 90
> minutes into a cycle. I can start 5-10 in.

That would suggest you are missing most of the regenerative sleep you are supposed to get.

No?

I don't think it happens all the time but I know it does happen. I do wake up tired sometimes. The Dr wants me to do a sleep study but it creeps me out.

Susan, you must do it. I've seen sleep studies done and at most they are uncomfortable for eight hours. Is that so difficult given that you already have difficult nights.

But if they can find what's going on, there's a good chance they can remediate the problem in part or in full. Don't continue to torture yourself.

That's what husbands are for.